Rig Your Roll
by shadowgirlVG
Summary: The Great Reunion went perfectly. Stan saw sense and took Journal 1 with no fuss. Now the portal is gone. Bill is out of Ford's head and everything should be fine from now on. After all, it's completely in Bill's nature to just give up. And Stan would certainly never do anything reckless. And there is absolutely NO WAY that Ford would wind up on a mad road trip around the country
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One: Who Would Win?**

 **Two Years Ago**

It was freezing.

It was freezing, the snow was piling up in drifts, and Stanley didn't even have enough money for a full tank of gas, let alone a motel. No. The best he had tonight was a stained blanket and his back-seat. He didn't have the energy to plan for once. He didn't even have the energy to wonder if he wanted to wake up the next day or not. Of all the ways to go, freezing to death in your sleep didn't seem like the worst of them.

Instead of thinking Stan just shivered and tried to curl himself into a tighter ball. It wasn't helping, but his body was ready to quit trying just yet. He was so wrapped up in just how cold he felt that it took a moment before he noticed the knocking at his window.

Was it the cops? Maybe it would be worth it to get jailed up for the night. Hell, maybe he'd have been better off if he'd never broken out in Columbia. He glanced up, too drained to even feel sorry for himself.

It wasn't the cops. It wasn't anyone he knew either. It was a woman who looked very bored, but also just the slightest bit concerned. Damn. Concern meant she wouldn't leave him alone. He rolled down the window slightly, hoping that not too much snow would get in.

"What do you want?"

The woman raised an eyebrow. "Is this really where you're staying tonight?"

"Hey, a man's gotta lay his head somewhere. It can't always be somewhere nice."

"There's a homeless shelter in town if you need it."

Stan scowled. Sure she meant well, but he wasn't about to take the chance the Stanley-mobile might get towed overnight. He'd never see her again. "Thanks, but I'll take my chances out here. I've been through worse."

"Hmm. Well that's stupid." The woman looked more bored than ever. "Did you know you're in my parking space?"

Fuck. Sure, he was behind an apartment building, but he hadn't seen any numbers on the spaces underneath the snow. He'd been hoping for the best. He really had to stop doing that.

"Let me guess, you need to park for the n-n-night?" A fresh shiver ran through him.

"No."

"No?"

"I don't have a car. The parking spot just comes with my apartment."

Stan stared at her dumbly. Just what did this lady want from him? "Listen, I'll clear out in the morning." If his car would even start. "Can I just-"

"Do you like spaghetti?"

"...What?"

The woman rubbed at her arms and at least had the decency to look like she felt a bit awkward at last. "I'm making spaghetti for dinner. You can have some and sleep on my couch. Use the shower too if you want. I don't mind."

Ah. Now things were starting to make sense. Not a lot of people took the whole good Samaritan thing this far, but Stan had seen it a few times. They'd put you up for a day or two. Get you to swear allegiance to some religion or other, then send you on your way (probably telling themselves you'd manage to get off the streets just fine from there).

"Aren't you worried I'm an ax-murderer?" he asked with a little grin. It was hardly a joke, but he wanted to see the woman at least crack a nervous smile.

"No." She didn't smile. Her face barely even moved. "I really don't care one way or another."

That was when Stanley realized that he'd been wrong before. The woman didn't look bored. She looked numb. It was the expression people wore when they were ready to give up. He had seen it on far too many people over the last eight years. It made his gut clench painfully.

Or maybe that was just his stomach protesting that he hadn't eaten today.

He decided he didn't really care enough to keep asking questions. Instead he put on the best showman smile he could and followed the woman to her apartment.

 **Today**

 _"_ _I can't believe you know all the 'Official Disney Princesses' in order."_

 _"_ _Really? That's what you're surprised at? Last week I listed 35 superheroes who wear yellow. I know stupid amounts about things no one cares about. That's kinda my thing. That's why I always call myself eidetic."_

 _"_ _Wait. That's what that means? I thought it was just a stupid nickname."_

 _"_ _It is! How have we done almost fifty episodes and you still don't know what my name means?!"_

 _*laughter* "Hey, I leave the fancy words to you. I'm just here to be the looks of this operation._

 _"_ _Well that's…"_

 _"_ _Anyway, why are we talking about Disney princesses?"_

 _"_ _For this week's debate! Who would win in a Disney Princess Hunger Games battle royale?"_

 _"_ _Hmmm, good one. I haven't seen 'em all, but there's that girl with the arrows, right? The one with the mop hair?"_

 _"_ _Merida's definitely a contender, but I'd put my money on Mulan. She beat a whole Hun army!"_

 _"_ _Love that movie. Learned all I gotta do to be a real man is act like a Pink Floyd album."_

 _"_ _What?"_

 _"_ _I gotta be...the Dark Side of the Moon! You know, cause of that song….when she's in the army…"_

 _"_ _Oh! Let's get down to business! To defeat! The-"_

 _"_ _Oi! Copyright infringement! Can we try to go a week without a C &D this time? Anyway, I thought of someone better: Elsa. She could just waste them all with her ice powers. No one could beat her!"_

 _"_ _Listeners, you won't believe this, but Nick is a HUGE Frozen fan. He saw that movie about a dozen times and cried at every showing."_

 _"_ _Aw, shut up! Can I help it if I like a good computer-generated magic snowman?"_

 _"_ _Anyway, you should know that Elsa's got a giant weak point. Maybe she could take out all the other girls, but there's no way she'd be able to kill Anna. If the really had to have just one person left, Elsa would make sure her sister won."_

 _"_ _...Yeah, I guess siblings look out for each other like that."_

 **Gravity Falls, OR: Today**

From an objective perspective this wasn't the best week Ford had ever had. Still, it was better than any he'd experienced in a long time.

The journals were hidden. The portal was largely disassembled (or, rather, blown up). Now all that was left was to hope this spell he'd found on a very sketchy sub-reddit would do the trick to keep a certain triangular menace from ever bothering him again.

Sure, it called for a circle of flash drives instead of candles and required Ford to track down an old Xbox controller cable to symbolically bind himself to a representation of his enemy (he'd chosen a bright yellow Furby based on how creepy they always looked). But he was banking on magic spells being the sort of thing that evolved in the same way technology did. Bill was an ancient demon. Surely he wouldn't bother to pay attention to minutiae of modern spellcasting, right?

Carefully, Ford began the cant of empowerment and tried very hard not to feel stupid as he did so. "At first I was afraid. I was petrified. I kept thinking that I could not live without you by my side."

At this point he wrapped the cord around wrists and tied the other end to the Furby, focusing very hard on his earlier memories with Bill. The times when he had felt so honored and then so afraid that Bill might leave him for some other genius if he didn't do the work Bill wanted.

"But then I spent so many nights," he sighed, "thinking about how you wronged me. I grew strong and I learned...um...how to survive." He loosened the cord and thought about the horrible weeks after he had learned Bill's true intentions and had to fight tooth and nail to keep Bill from using his own body against him. Then he spared a thought to try and recall how the stupid song went.

"So now you're back, from outer space. I just dadada dada...look on your face…" This wasn't really the important part. What really mattered was the feeling behind it. Ford let himself fill with all the anger and indignation and humiliation he'd gone through for the past month and imagined it all flowing into the cable, down from his hands, and then tightly wrapping around the Furby.

He was getting into the proper frame of mind for this now. He let his voice rise up and fill the whole lab where it echoed like the wrath of an avenging angel. "Go on now, go! Walk out of the door! Go turn around because you are not welcome anymore! Are you not the one who tried to break me with good-bye? Did you think I would _crumble_? Did you think I would lay down and die? Nay! Not I! I! Will! Survive!"

And with that he cut through the cord with a specially enchanted knife and watched with satisfaction as the Furby lit up with a bright blue flame. The toy let out an alarming whine. Ford carefully stepped away from it, out of the protective circle. The fire didn't last long but by the time it was down the Furby's motor had melted and all its fur was a mere memory.

Ford sighed with relief. _Something_ had happened at least. He only hoped it would be enough. He was nearly delirious from how little he had slept in the last few weeks. He stumbled to the elevator and nearly fell asleep on the way to his bedroom. He crashed onto his pillow and didn't even bother to removed the various papers that cluttered the bed. His last thought before lost consciousness was a wish.

 _I really hope I just have normal nightmares for once._

To his surprise and delight, he did. In fact, he had one of the best rests he'd ever known. It wasn't until the next afternoon that Ford found a new reason to be filled with a murderous rage.

At 4:03 PM he checked his e-mail. He had a message from an address he didn't know. The subject line said "I thought you might want to see this…." Curious, he opened it and found a link and image for an Ebay listing...one for an extremely familiar journal.

Ford's right eye started to twitch. "That's it. I'm finally ready to commit fratricide."

He slammed down his coffee mug and stormed out the door. He didn't care if he had to drive across the whole country to do it. He was going to _kill_ Stanley Pines.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

 **Two Years Ago**

It was pretty easy for one night on a couch to turn into a month. That was the point where Stan calmed down to mostly trust that his roommate wouldn't kill him in his sleep. He decided to make things official, buy a second-hand bed and start actually settling in. It wasn't hard. Mika didn't have a lot of stuff.

Honestly, there wasn't a lot to Mika in general. She was quiet. She slept too much and ate too little. Her voice was always a little hollow. Not exactly the best company. It wasn't hard to tell that life had hit her hard, but she also wasn't big on talking about herself.

Stan could live with that. Her problems weren't really his issue. He stuck around because she got him groceries and didn't charge him rent. After a week she'd even let him use her laptop to look up local jobs that were hiring. Craigslist got you some weird listings, but at least he didn't need to do a background check for them.

In fact, it wasn't long before Stan had decorated the apartment more than Mika had. Stan had a bed, a pile of clothes, a mirror, and a couple of movie posters he'd sweet-talked an usher to get. Mika had a bed, a dresser, the living room couch, and boxes. Dozens of boxes. It was a little cardboard city in her room. At first Stan had wondered if she was just slow at unpacking, but she didn't touch a single one in that whole first month. It was kind of creepy. Sometimes Stan had nightmares that the boxes were filled with jars of eyes or a huge collection of teeth.

One night he woke up in a cold sweat. He'd dreamed the boxes were full of drugs and puppies and the cops were at the door. It had felt far too real for comfort. He had to see what was in at least one of those damn boxes if he wanted to get back to sleep.

He stepped out of his room and checked the front door. Mika's shoes were gone. It wasn't unusual. She was a night owl and she liked to go for long walks in the dark. Or maybe she was going on dates. Or she was a vampire hunting for victims. Stan shook his head and reminded himself that it was, still, not his problem. What mattered was he had time to do a little snooping.

Still, he was careful when he opened the door to her room. The bed was unmade and obviously empty. He sighed in relief and grabbed a box at random.

He almost dropped it immediately. The thing weighed a ton! What the hell was she hiding in there? Stan swore under his breath and lugged it over to the bed. The mattress sagged more under the box than it did under him.

It was sealed closed with tape, so Stan knew he'd have to peel it carefully if he wanted it to look undisturbed when he was done. Unfortunately, there is no earthly way to remove tape from a cardboard box quietly.

The tape shrieked a war cry as Stan pulled off three inches of it. "Shit!"

"What are you doing?"

Stan liked to think of himself as a smooth operator, always cool under pressure. The yelp he let out as he flew back at seeing Mika did not help maintain that image. Though, to be fair, she had just appeared about a foot away from him.

"Where the hell did you come from?!"

Mika tilted her head back, indicating the space behind her. "I was in the closet. I like to be in small spaces sometimes. Why are you going through my things?"

It took a moment for Stan to process what she'd said. She just looked so….not angry. So not anything. She looked like she barely even cared that he'd invaded her privacy and was clearly planning to dig around in her things. Everything in Stan's brain told him he should get tossed on the street for this, but his gut said he could just put the box down, leave the room, and close the door and it would be like nothing had happened.

Somehow that image freaked him out even more than his nightmare had. He finally cracked.

"What the hell is wrong with you?! Why are so weird and mysterious and shit?"

For the first time in weeks Mika showed an emotion. She looked surprised. "I'm not mysterious."

Stan snorted. "LIke hell you aren't! I've been here a month and I barely know a damn thing about you! You go days without talking. You don't say where you go or what you do. You even wear the same outfit everyday!"

She looked down at her clothes. "Alright, I do wear this hoodie a lot, but I promise I wear a different set of jeans every few days."

"Whatever! You're practically a ghost! Why is everything about you a secret? Are you on the run? Are you in the witness protection program?"

She shrugged. "Nah. I don't keep secrets. You just never asked me anything."

"Never asked…" Stan slapped his forehead. He had definitely asked her questions. Nice buddy questions like 'So how do you like this town?', 'Do you need some cash to pay for the groceries?', and 'Do you know a good place to get a drink around here?' Her replies had been 'It exists', 'No', and a long, lingering stare until he'd gotten uncomfortable and gone to find a bar on his own.

Fine. He play at twenty questions if that was what it took. "Okay...what's your job?"

"I make puzzles."

"What, like jigsaw puzzles?"

"No."

Stan waited but she didn't elaborate. He sighed. "What do you make the puzzles for?"

"For my victims. I like to trap strangers in a room and not let them out unless they solve all my nefarious riddles."

Time stretched out for a long moment as Stan stared into Mika's dead eyes and tried to decide if he should make a run for the door. He'd known this whole set-up was too good to be true! He was living with some Jigsaw-wannabe serial killer and with his luck he was either gonna wind up murdered or framed for her crimes! Geez, did anyone even know he was living here? He didn't exactly have local friends and...and Mika was giggling.

It wasn't even an evil giggle. It was the small, delighted laugh of someone who couldn't believe how well their prank was going.

"You asshole! You scared the hell out of me!" Stan's heart wasn't in it though. He couldn't be mad when he was finally seeing her smile for the first time.

"Sorry, I'm sorry!" Mika raising her hands in front of her. "You just looked so freaked out! Did you really think you were living with a movie villain? Who says 'nefarious' in real life?"

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. It wasn't like I had a lot of information to draw on, you know." Stan leaned back and the motion caused the box next to him to press against his side, reminding him of its weight. "So what's up with these boxes? Do they have your rock collection in 'em or something?"

Mika picked up the box beside him and with a heft of effort balanced it on one leg to open it. The lids popped open, revealing a great pile of…

"Books," Stan said flatly. After all his nightmares it was full of one of the most boring things in the known universe.

"A _lot_ of books," Mika clarified. She carefully put the box and stroked a cover fondly. It was 'The Gentleman's Guide to Formal Dining'. "I have a whole section on etiquette, but I'm guessing you wouldn't be too interested in that. For you, I'm thinking…" She fished around, pulling out piles and piles of books. "Here we go! An adventure!" She held it out to him proudly. "You look like an adventure sort of guy."

Stan stared at the book, then glanced back up at Mika. Oh god, she looked almost...giddy. There was still an edge of sadness to her expression, a void that just wasn't front and center for the moment. And it was all because she thought she could get him to read a book.

"Er, sorry, reading's never really been my thing. Thanks for the offer though." He braced himself for her to look disappointed. What he got was worse.

Instead, Mika fixed him with a steely gaze and smiled with a grin that showed too many of her teeth. "Oh, they all say that at first. Let me read you a few chapters. Trust me. You'll be hooked by then."

Stan sighed. "Fine, if it'll make you happy. But just this once, alright?"

Her only reply was a crafty smile.

 **Rig Your Role: Episode 1**

EI: Welcome listeners! I can only assume you've come to join us today from the distant future, where this show is a hit all over the internet. I hope you enjoy hearing this: our humble beginnings.

NGN: You're really setting the bar high, aren't you?

EI: I thought you'd appreciate it. Think big or go home, right? And that's the point of this show, listeners. You see, we're a couple of con artists…

NGN: What?! Nope! Definitely not true! There is certainly no reason to go looking into our criminal records, especially not in certain South American countries!

EI:...Well, that's something I did not know and will make no effort to think about again! No, I meant we're more metaphorical con artists.

NGN: Cut it out. I don't want to go to metaphorical jail either.

EI: *sigh* Okay. Let me simplify it. We're liars, manipulators, and opportunists. We're folks who like to find a system and make it break. It's not about breaking the law which, I should specify, we don't actually do….as far as I'm aware.

NGN: Stop looking at me like that!

EI: We are what I like to call Life Hackers, and we're here to make your life easier. We're not going to tell you how to stick a straw through a strawberry or keep your cords untangled though. We're about bigger things.

NGN: How to bluff your way through a job interview, how to work a crowd so they throw money at you…

EI: And the biggest con of all…

NGN&EI: How to make everyone think you're okay!

NGN: We're not healthy people.

EI: But we've got charisma!

NGN: If your life has come down to a roll of the dice, we're here to help you rig it! Get it? Did you see what I did there?

EI: It was lovely, Nick. Very smooth. Anyway! For our first episode, I thought we'd outline the basic philosophy we've hashed out. Step one: what's your goal? The big one, not just what's in front of you.

NGN: Step two: what rules do you have to follow to get what you want?

EI: And step three…

NGN&EI: How're you gonna cheat?

EI: We'll give you more details as we go. Just remember, authority is an illusion we've all agreed on. Sometimes breaking the rules is the only way to survive. Sometimes though, if you're lucky, it's a hell of a lot of fun too.

 **Present Day**

Luckily for Ford, he didn't actually have to drive across the country. He was ten minutes into his vengeance crusade when he remembered that airplanes existed. Several hours later he was in the air, trying to decide what adjective would best describe his all-consuming righteous rage. By the time he'd landed, he'd decided on 'thunderous'.

Honestly, what was _wrong_ with Stanley? Ford have given him that journal with the specific warning that the fate of the world was at stake and he turned around to sell it for a quick buck?! He wasn't even charging a good price! Years of the chronicles of Ford's work was worth far more than fifty dollars! It was true that it was unlikely anyone could rebuild the portal with only ⅓ of the design, but there was plenty else in that book that could be deadly in the wrong hands. It was a good thing Stan had been out of his life for so long. Who knew what other damage he might have done over the last ten years?

"Hey! Dude! I said we're here! Are you going to pay me or what?"

Ford blinked and brought himself back to reality. Sure enough, his cab driver had brought him to an apartment complex that looked likely to correspond to the address his mother had given him. He paid the driver and stepped out into the cold February air. It was dark out, the middle of the night really. Perhaps it would have been better to come here in the morning.

He suddenly found he didn't want to be here. All he'd thought about for weeks was being free of Bill and then for the last several hours he'd focused all his energies on how angry he was with Stan. Now he was alone in the cold, surrounded by a dead silence and the orange glow of streetlights. He felt...quiet. Human. Vulnerable. He'd flown across the country to pick a fight, but suddenly his most pressing thought was how long it had been since he'd touched another person, since a cold winter night had felt normal and safe.

There were open walkways on each floor in front of the apartments. Ford walked in front of the building and spotted the door for 8B. His brother was in there, probably asleep with no idea Ford was right outside.

How dare he?

How dare Stan have an apartment across the country from where the world had almost ended? How dare he have peaceful sleep in a quiet town where he could feel safe and comfortable while Ford battled for his life and sanity? Ford didn't begrudge Stan having a normal life, but for him to have all that and then _reluctantly_ do a little thing like protect a book that just happened to be Ford's _life's work_? To take a tome that Ford had literally bled for more times than he could count and then try to _sell it_?

Ford didn't care what time it was anymore. He stormed up the stairs and banged on Stanley's door. It was more of a punch than a knock. He needed the practice, after all.

The wind blew out of his sails when a pretty punk woman opened the door.

Ford's face went red. "Oh! I'm, I'm so sorry! It looks like I have the wrong address! I'll just...go somewhere else."

The woman stared at him in surprise for a moment, then burst into a wide grin. "Oh, hi! You must be Stanford! I wasn't expecting you to get here so soon. Please, come in!"

He didn't come in. Instead Ford kept staring, trying to put the pieces together. "Um. I'm looking for my brother? Stanley Pines?"

"Yup! He lives here. He's working an overnight shift tonight so he'll be a while. But seriously, please come in. It's freezing out there."

Abruptly Ford remembered his manners and stepped inside. The woman extended her hand and he shook it reluctantly. He was still a bit nervous about handshakes these days.

"I'm Mika. It's nice to meet you." She smiled and it looked a little mischievous, with a matching glint in her eyes. It suited her look, what with her half-shaved blue hair and Alice in Wonderland shirt proclaiming the benefits of madness. Still, she seemed nice at least.

She wasn't the sort of person Ford would have expected to find in Stanley's home. She wasn't the only odd thing either. They'd stepped into a small living room that led into a kitchen. There were ordinary things like a couch, a coffee table, and a television, but besides that the walls were hidden behind an alarming number of bookcases, all bursting with books.

He really should have returned Mika's greeting. Instead the first thing out of his mouth was, "Stanley doesn't _read_."

Mika didn't seem to mind. "Not much, I have to admit. I've never been able to give him the bug. We have a lot of fun with me reading stories aloud though. It's a popular pastime in our home."

Ford looked at her more critically. "And you're...You're not his girlfriend are you?"

She shook her head and grinned. "Best friend and roommate. You're far from the first person to ask though. We've lived together for a few years now." She sat down on the couch and picked up a mug from the coffee table. Ford wasn't very up to date on, well, a lot of things, but he did recognize the mug's rainbow pattern as a gay pride flag, which answered a few questions at least.

He hastily began to scan the bookshelves just in case Stan had left the journal in plain sight. That would save him some stress at least.

"You're not really a man of many words, are you?" Mika said with a bit of a tease in her voice.

Ford blushed. Right. Social interaction. That was a thing most people expected. "My apologies. It's been a long day. I hadn't expected to come out here today."

"I know."

"And my visit isn't exactly a social one. I have important business with Stanley."

"Yeah, but not the business you think."

Alright, this was starting to get weird. Or maybe it had been weird from the beginning. Ford knew his mind still wasn't back to 100% yet, but he tried to really focus on Mika. She was staring at him over the lip of her mug, smiling like a cat looking forward to playing with her prey.

"What exactly do you mean?" Ford asked cautiously. "How did you know to expect me? I didn't tell anyone that I was coming."

"Well…" she teased out the word into a long stretch. "You see, from everything Stan's told me about you I knew you were a pretty impulsive guy when you got riled up. That's why I sent you that e-mail about your book being for sale. I figured you would be here in a few days, tops."

Ford narrowed his eyes. Given the way she was still grinning at him in malicious delight, he didn't think he should be thanking her. "So, you wanted to tell me what Stanley had done?"

"Oh, no. Yeah, I should probably clear that up before you see each other. I don't want to give you another reason to fight. That was all me. I took the journal from Stan, put it up for sale, then contacted you about it. You have fallen for my nefarious trap!"

Immediately Stanford's heart began to race. He backed away. His eyes darted around the room looking for enemies, weapons, a means of escape. What had he gotten himself into now? Did Stanley even live here?

Mika winced. "Oh. Whoops. Did I make that too creepy? I was going for more of an amusing puppet-master kind of vibe. Don't get me wrong, I hate your guts, but I don't want to give you a panic attack. Stan did mention you were a little high strung when he saw you."

Something inside of Ford snapped in that moment. A puppet-master? He had had enough puppet-masters to last him an eternity. This woman had tricked him into a cross-country journey that was a complete waste of his time after weeks of madness, torture, and betrayal and now she had the nerve to call him _high strung_?

"Listen to me you florescent-haired fool!" He jabbed a finger in her direction. "I'm not about to sit here and waste my time playing whatever sick little games you've come up with! You have no idea what sort of hell I've been through! I am done with being tricked! Now give me back my journal _right now_ or I swear you will regret it!"

To Ford's disappointment Mika looked far from intimidated. In fact she looked bored. At least she had stopped smiling though. Carefully, she put her mug back on the coffee table, stood up, and crossed her arms.

"If I did give it back, would you even stay long enough for Stanley to come home?"

Ford hesitated and that seemed to be enough of an answer for Mika. "I didn't think so. Stanford, you're right that I don't know what you've been going through. Maybe it really is as bad as you're implying. I really don't care. All I care about is the fact that you apparently broke your brother's heart without so much as a second thought. If you don't do something to set things right, you're never going to see your journal again."


	3. Chapter 3

p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"strongChapter Three/strong/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"strongPresent Day/strong/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""Now I know you two have been apart for a long time. Ten years is a lot of catching up to do and there's a lot even I don't know about the first eight of it. So, to make things easier...I made you a scrapbook!"/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Mika proudly held up a very full binder with the words span style="font-style: oblique;"The Life and Times of Stanley Pines/span written across the front. The pages bulged unevenly where items had apparently been glued in. "This baby's got pictures, journal entries, scorecards, samples of ashes, everything you need to know about Stan's life for the last two years." She flipped it open to the front. "It's a bit of reading, but I can take you to the important parts to get started."/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Ford continued to stare at her in bewilderment. She was trying to make him her...emotional hostage? Or rather, the journal was the hostage until Ford spoke to Stanley and somehow convinced this madwoman that they were the happiest of brothers. It was absurd./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""This is absurd!" Ford reached out and knocked the scrapbook from Mika's hands. "My relationship with my brother is none of your business. He and I made our choices long ago and have pursued the lives that best suited us. Whatever stories he may have told you to the contrary, he is the one who caused us to part ways and I see now I was right maintain that separation. If you're the sort of company he keeps, then I want nothing to do with him!"/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"They were harsh, dramatic words. Ford quickly glanced over his shoulder. It would be just his luck if Stan had walked in at just that moment. There was nothing. Then he turned back and saw Mika glaring at him with the angriest expression he'd ever seen./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""Wow," she said in a low tone. "I knew you were an idiot, but I never guessed it was this bad."/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Ford bristled at the insult. "You don't know-"/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""Shh!" She put a finger to his lips, which was startling enough to actually make him be quiet. "I'm quite possibly the best thing that ever happened to your brother. Which, considering, is pretty sad. I met him living out of his span style="font-style: oblique;"car/span, Ford. I met him when he was barely surviving from day to day and wondering if should bother to keep living. Do you span style="font-style: oblique;"really/span think that's the life best suited him? The life he span style="font-style: oblique;"chose/span?"/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Blood drained from Ford's face. Stan was homeless? Suicidal? Surely she was exaggerating. He took a step back. "Well...I…"/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""No!" Mika pushed forward and this time covered Ford's mouth with one hand and used the other to point at him. Her voice was still deadly quiet. "Stan told me what happened at that little science fair of yours and it's the stupidest story I've ever heard. Your father was a monster for throwing him out, but you? You had a chance to be better. You had ten years of chances to reach out to your span style="font-style: oblique;"best friend/span and at least make sure he was span style="font-style: oblique;"alive/span. Instead you just left him to rot."/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"She wagged her finger and pointed it so close to Ford's face that his eyes started to cross. "Do you have any idea how much Stan's missed you? Every. Day. Every day since he left he's worked to try and make amends. Every day his one wish has been to find some way to bring two of you back together again. Every span style="font-style: oblique;"damn/span day I've known him I've been trying to give Stan an span style="font-style: oblique;"ounce/span of self esteem. To make him believe that he's more than the guy that ruined his brother's life. Then, finally, one day it seemed like it was going to come true."/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Ford could see where the story was going now. He'd written to Stanley, obviously in a state of desperation and begging for help. Stan thought there was hope for them to reconcile and had arrived to find Ford too focused on span style="font-style: oblique;"saving the world/span to think about anything else. Ford supposed that could have upset him a bit./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"He stepped back again to get away from Mika's hand. "Alright, so you're saying that Stanley is angry and you think I owe him an apology. Is that it?"/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""Oh, you owe him plenty of apologies. There's no doubt about that. Ideally I'd even like you to become friends again." Mika pressed closer still. Now she was just a breath away and Ford was nearly falling into the bathroom. "But what I want most of all is for you to admit to Stanley that your stupid little invention was never going to work in the first place."/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"What in the world? Was she still talking about the science fair? And she had the nerve to doubt him through second-hand information? It raked at his professional pride./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""Now you span style="font-style: oblique;"really/span have no idea what you're talking about," he said with a sneer. "Are you a scientist? Did you see my blueprints? I hardly think you're qualified to evaluate the effectiveness of a perpetual motion device, let alone one you've never seen. That's why people like me are span style="font-style: oblique;"supposed/span to go to West Coast Tech and people like you span style="font-style: oblique;"don't/span."/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"He was satisfied to see he'd finally landed a blow. Mika looked shocked and blushed intensely. Still, she refused to give up any ground. "Well, maybe I'm not some fancy acclaimed physicist, but I'm smart enough to notice that we're not exactly living off of unlimited free energy out here! I haven't heard of so much as a toaster being powered by perpetual energy and, considering that's basically the Holy Grail of physics, I think some people might have mentioned it!"/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Now it was Ford's turn to blush. He thought back to all the pride he'd had in his little high school invention. "It's not that simple…"/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""Sure it is," Mika said with a light laugh that Ford deeply hated. "Here's how I see it. Either you invented a perpetual motion machine when you were 17-years-old but your mean ol' brother broke it and made you so sad that you couldn't even span style="font-style: oblique;"stand/span to think of all the fame and acclaim you'd get if you just rebuilt the thing...or you made a neat machine that would have spun for a while, maybe hours or even days, but just couldn't beat that gosh darn friction." She swung her arm to the side in an 'aw, shucks' motion./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""Unless…" Mika put a finger to her lips and looked thoughtful. "Hmm. You weren't bought out by the oil companies, were you? Are you part of some anti-clean energy conspiracy?"/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""Don't be absurd!"/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""Aha!" She smiled triumphantly. "So then it's true that you're either selfish or or not as smart as you said you were! Which is it?"/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Ford scowled. Inside he felt like groaning. What had he done to deserve this? All of this? Ten years ago all he'd wanted was to learn and share his knowledge with the world. When had it turned into all his friends betraying him? When had it turned into perfect strangers looking at him like he was evil incarnate? Was this going to be his life from now on? The world endlessly rubbing his face in his failures? No one understood how hard he tried. No one would ever understand how he might have changed the world./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"It wasn't right. It wasn't fair./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"He glared back at Mika. "Why are you so determined to make me into a villain? Is that really the best you can do?"/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Mika's eyes flashed. "This is span style="font-style: oblique;"not/span about span style="font-style: oblique;"YOU!/span/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"By now they were wedged into a little square of hallway, with the bathroom open behind Ford and closed doors to their left and right. As soon as Mika yelled Ford heard a heavy thump from behind the door to his right. Ten years melted away in an instant. It didn't matter how much time past. Stanford knew the sound of his brother rolling out of bed./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Frantically, Ford looked back at Mika. "I thought you said he wasn't home!"/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"She smirked and shrugged. "Yeah. I lied."/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"There was no time to run before Stanley Pines opened his bedroom door and stared at Ford in complete bewilderment./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;" /p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"strongTwo Years Ago/strong/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Stan always felt more comfortable when he knew what the system was. Mika's system was weird, but simple. You couldn't imply stuff around her. You had to say things straight out. For a week or two Stan had tried saying things like "You sure you're eating enough?" and "I'm going to get a pizza. What do you think?" but she would always worm her way around what he really wanted to know. Pounding on her door and yelling for her to eat a few times a day worked a lot better./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"They were three months in now and Stan was starting to wonder if he might have really found a home. He had a few odd construction jobs that kept him fed, if not exactly rich, and they were in a small city that was supposed to get a bunch of tourists in the summer. He was already trying to think of scams, er, plans he could pull off to start bringing in some big bucks. Best of all, no one here was trying to kill him!/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"There was another thing though. He had to admit he had a soft spot for Mika. There was something broken in her. She didn't talk down about herself, at least not out loud, but Stan knew that look she always wore way too well. She needed a friend and Stan could tell he was doing something good every time he made her laugh at one of his jokes./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"They even went outside together sometimes. It was never for very long. Mika got overwhelmed easily. Sometimes it was crowds or noise. Other times she would just stop and sit down somewhere and curl in a ball. She never explained why and Stanley didn't ask. He'd just take her back home, joking the whole way./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Alright, it did make her an awkward roommate. She disappeared whenever he brought a date or even someone from work home. And asking her to clean stuff up was always a gamble. Some days she could do the dishes just fine and other days she'd wash one plate then freeze for ten minutes watching water run off her hands./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"The only way to get her to talk was when they read books together. Specifically, Mika read aloud to Stan, often while he was drawing up some new tourism scheme. She was damn good at it, making all the right parts dramatic or funny, giving all the characters their own voices. She also had a real knack for finding stories that Stan could really get into. His favorites were the Bloody Jack books, but Mika had also pulled him into some great mysteries and even romance novels./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Sometimes they took the books seriously. Other times they had a blast tearing the stories apart. Mika went out of her way to find the most ridiculous plots she could find and both of them would interrupt the narrative with so many jokes they could barely get through a chapter. Mika smiled the most then./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"She also had a lot to say about her books, even the ones she swore Stan would never like. She could talk for hours about which plots were best, what she thought different things symbolized, or what was going on in history when a certain book was written. Stan didn't really care about a lot of it, but it was nice to be able to listen to her./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"It also made the cardboard city in her room start to disappear./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"He'd noticed it a few days after they'd started reading the first Bloody Jack book together. Mika had emptied all the books out of one box to find it. Instead of getting packed up again, those books had gone onto an empty bookcase in the corner of her room. It was just a little step, but she'd unpacked something all by herself./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"A week after that Stan came home with a pair of second-hand bookcases from the charity store. They weren't much. They were just enough to hold a few more title, enough to unpack a few more boxes. Mika didn't say anything when she saw them. Instead she stared then looked back at Stan uncertainly./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""Yup. They're for you." Stan rolled his eyes. "I mean, what the heck would I use them for?"/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"All at once Mika crushed him in a tight hug. She had never even touched him before. "Thank you. Thank you for being kind."/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Stan fussed and said it wasn't a big deal and neither of them spoke of it again. Still, Stan's heart swelled every time he saw new books fill up those shelves. One day he was going to make sure Mika didn't have a single box left in her room./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;" /p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"strongPresent Day/strong/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""Ford? What the hell are you doing here?"/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""Don't blame me! It's all your ridiculous roommate's fault!"/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""Mika? Wait...Mika what the hell did you do?"/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""I...may have threatened to sell your brother's journal if he didn't come here and try to make up with you."/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""What?! What the fuck!"/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""Oh, come on! Like this is any different from the time you locked me in an elevator with my dad!"/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""Hey! You two had that coming! You got us kicked out of a perfectly good mini-golf course!"/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""That course was an eye-sore and a heteronormative hellscape! It wasn't my fault Dad hadn't absorbed third wave feminism!"/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Ford pinched his nose and tried to tune out their yelling. How in the world did their neighbors stand these two? However, when a minute passed and Mika started talking about intersectionality he decided he had to interrupt. "Stanley, it's your choice if you've decided to live with a madwoman, but can you please get her to give me back my journal? I'm exhausted and I still need to find a hotel."/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"They stopped arguing. Mika cringed and Stan looked at Ford with an inscrutable expression. Ford patiently waited and stared back. He had a feeling all their expressions had some deeper meaning. He was too tired to care./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Finally Stan broke eye-contact. "Right. Fine." He turned to Mika. "What's your price?"/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Mika bit her lip nervously. "Um...don't you want to…? Okay. I understand. One hour. I want you two to sit and actually talk to each other for one hour. Alright?"/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Stan let out a loud sigh. "Yeah, why not? It'll kill one of us if it doesn't get us both, you know."/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""Please, Stan. Please try. You know how important this is." Her eyes looked a little misty./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""No promises. Now get out and give us some space, will you?"/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Mika nodded and put on her shoes, throwing one last warning look at Stanford before she left out the front door./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"As soon as she was gone Ford exhaled in relief. "Finally! I thought she'd never leave!"/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Stan chuckled. "Yeah, she can get a little scary when she sets out to do something." He scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. "So, uh, do you want a beer or something? I think we're gonna be in for a hell of a little chat."/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;" /p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"strong90 Minutes Later/strong/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Mika came home and was slightly surprised to see her apartment in complete wreckage. The only fortunate part was that her favorite books were still safe./p 


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